Omnitheories
by ScarletEmpress2017
Summary: Gwen is unsatisfied with some explanations she and the others are given. So, she comes up with a few of her own and tells her dear cousin all about it.
1. The Ultimates

**The Ultimates**

Gwen eyed her laptop in thought, frustration lightly marring her features. She paused and looked up when she heard knocking at her door.

"Come in Ben," she called

Her cousin cautiously stepped in, a curious look on his face. He broke off for a split second before speaking in a voice laced with confusion.

"How'd you know it was me?"

"My parents always sort of just knock and come in, Ken asks if I'm decent, and Kevin is the only one who ever asks if he can come in," she answered. "The only other option was you."

"Pretty clever. So, what's up?"

"Well…" Gwen looked slightly sheepish.

"Gwen, you wouldn't have called me over for nothing."

"Well, to be honest, I've been thinking a lot about you and the Ultimatrix really."

"Me and the Ultimatrix? What about?"

"A lot of things, I guess?"

"Like what?"

"Remember that time a few of your ultimate forms gained sentience?"

"How could I forget? You scared my half to death going all Anodite on them."

"And you scared me when you jumped into that pit. But that's not the point. It didn't really bother me that their sentient now; what really bugged me is _how_ they gained sentience."

"I was a bit concerned about that… But honestly, I was more concerned about how weird Kevin was acting when he got back from Galvan Prime. …How long have you been thinking about this again?"

"Two months."

"So, what've you got?"

She turned her laptop to face him and he raised his brow at the collection of notes.

"You really went to town on this one, didn't you?"

"Yeah. What I was thinking was; you probably don't remember this, but when Dr. Borges was questioning you and Ultimate Humongasaur, he mentioned that his mother tried to eat him before he hatched."

"Yikes, no wonder he was so aggressive," Ben looked extremely disturbed at the revelation and tried to not think of the implications of it.

"Probably, but that's not my point. How could an 'empty shell' that just learned how to… Well, _be_ , remember something it never suffered?"

"That is pretty strange... So, I take it you have a few ideas on how that could be possible?"

"Just one."

"Alright then, let's hear it."

"Okay, Azmuth said that the Ultimates were just empty shells for your mind to inhabit, right?"

"Right."

"The way I see it, that's only the case for the un-evolved, or 'original forms'."

"Hmm… And how would that work?"

"The original Omnitrix was intended to replace your DNA with alien DNA, essentially turning you into an alien, right?"

"Right."

"And the Ultimatrix does that _plus_ evolving that DNA, right?"

"Right…"

"Good. So, the way I see it, the Ultimatrix glitched at some point when it evolved those aliens."

"And the glitch is what caused the Ultimates to gain sentience, right?"

"Something like that."

"I'm sorry, how would that work again?"

"To be honest I can't be sure, but my theory is that since Ultimatrix uses some kind of artificial evolution; and it — for lack of better wording — tampers with the original DNA sample in order to do it."

"I guess that make sense, but like you said, Azmuth said that the aliens in Ultimatrix were empty shells for a mind to inhabit."

"I know what he said, but I doubt we should take that at face value."

"Ya'know, you're probably right. I thought it sounded a little 'dumbed-down' anyway."

"And therefore not entirely accurate."

"You're probably right."

"The way I see it, the glitch in the Ultimatrix that caused the Ultimates to gain sentience was that it failed to graft out the specific helices that made up those specific aliens."

"…Could you please put that in layman's terms?"

"How about this? When you meet a new alien species, what do you do?"

"I scan their DNA."

"Then what happened to that scan?"

"It's added to the Codon Stream?"

"Exactly, but what you forget is that DNA is also specific to the individual."

Ben now looked somewhere between completely lost, and absolutely lost. Gwen just gave her cousin a look of disbelief. He at least had the decency to flush pink.

"Did you pay any attention in biology class?"

"Sorta?"

" _Anyway_ … The DNA samples —your aliens — are basically genetic clones of the doners."

"That would explain Chromastone and Sugilite."

"Please don't interrupt me."

"Sorry."

"Now, if your aliens are genetic clones of the original person, what the Utimatrix does is evolve that specific person."

"I follow you."

"So, the glitch that caused the Ultimates was a fault in non-essential helix grafting."

"…Aaand, now you've lost me."

"Alright, crash-course Biology class. Part of what makes you is fifty percent of what makes up your mom, and fifty percent what makes up your dad; _plus_ the way those parts are combined."

"Okay."

"When I say helix grafting, I mean that the Ultimatrix removes that parts of your DNA that make you human, not the parts that make you Ben Tennyson. So, when you transform into say… Swampfire, instead of you becoming that _specific_ Methanosian you become Swampfire."

"I think I get it. Basically, I'm still my parents' kid, just a different species."

"Correct."

"Cool. So that means if at one point the 'helix grafting' failed; then the Ultimatrix created an active clone instead of just a base transformation, right?"

"Uh-huh. And that would explain the Ultimates's memories. They weren't falsely developed; those were the memories of the originals in an evolved form."

"You really think that's what happened?"

"It's the only explanation I can come up with."

"Just then, Gwen's cell phone rang. She answered quickly with a content smile on her face.

"Hey Kevin… Yeah, why? — What! Alright, hurry up… Don't worry, he's already here with me. Say 'hi' Ben."

Gwen held up the device and Ben smirked with a wicked gleam in his eye.

"Hey, Kev-in," Ben drawled, pitching his voice in an attempt to sound like a love-sick puppy.

Gwen glared at the obvious and over-exaggerated impersonation and snatched the phone back.

"Ignore that. See you soon."

And with that she hung up. She glared at her cousin even as he donned a more serious air.

"What's up?"

"Kevin thinks he found one of Albedo's hideouts."

"Is that so? You know… I'm gonna chalk that whole 'glitch' thing up to his shoddy workmanship."


	2. Kevin

The car cruised on the silent street; its driver and occupants sitting in fatigued silence. The red-head of the bunch lightly dozed then woke with a sudden start.

"It's alright if you fall asleep Gwen," Ben soothed quietly.

With that said, the young woman dropped like a stone and slept. The two boys stifled their chuckling at her actions. The ride back to Gwen's house was silent. When they pulled up, Kevin parked the car as gently as he could.

"Go knock on the door, would ya'?" he asked.

Ben nodded and got out of the car. He rushed to the front door and knocked. Thankfully, his aunt and uncle were still awake.

"Ben?"

"Hi Aunt Lili."

"Ben honey, where's Gwen?"

"Kevin's getting her outta the car; she fell asleep and we didn't want to wake her up," he explained.

"I see…"

Ben refrained from saying anything else. Natalie Tennyson didn't particularly _like_ Kevin. He had enough of a bad reputation that she did not approve of him dating her daughter and only put up with him for her nephew's sake. Fortunately, she was subtle in her distain so Ben never said anything. He knew there was more to Kevin than she would care to find out.

He knew what it was like to have a reputation.

The osmosian came up the front door with Gwen carefully cradled in his arms. Ben looked at his aunt again, hoping Kevin wouldn't notice the twitch of her mouth.

"Good evening Mrs. Tennyson."

Natalie said nothing but took one look at her daughter in his arms and turned to her husband.

"Frank dear, come and take Gwen upstairs."

Frank moved to get up but Ben quickly stopped him.

"No, wait! I don't think that's a good idea. Uncle Frank, you might throw your back out again. Don't worry, Kevin and I will take her upstairs. C'mon."

Kevin dutifully followed at his best friend's insistence. They travelled up the stairs, painfully aware of Natalie's eyes on them. Ben opened the door and Kevin followed. Gwen's room was relatively clean, but her bed was strangely a mess, full of notebook, loose-leaf, and pencils.

"Oh, I forgot about all this," Ben said.

"What were you two doing?" Kevin asked quietly.

"Gwen just wanted to show me something, I'm sure she'll tell you about it later."

Ben quickly packed up the stationary supplies and suddenly paused upon fining some sort of complex mathematic equation.

"I really wonder how she does this," he wondered aloud, shaking his head.

"How she does what?" Kevin asked, gently laying his girlfriend on her bed.

Ben said nothing but showed Kevin the page. The osmosian took one look at the paper and frowned.

"She forgot to divide the last monomial."

Ben broke off from removing the laptop from the bed and just stared.

"How the heck do you even _know_ that?" he hissed, looking at the paper for himself.

Keven carefully removed Gwen from his person and took the notepaper for himself. He took a pencil and began re-working the equation underneath the original. When he finished scribbling on the page, the new sum didn't look that much different to Ben, but Kevin looked quite satisfied with his handiwork.

"Now it's correct."

"Ya'know, sometimes I forget just how smart you are." Ben said.

"I'm not that smart," Kevin mumbled.

"Dude, you just solved some kind of AP Calculus Honors math question."

"That was an astrophysical equation," Kevin corrected plainly.

"That's even worse!"

The two froze and turned their heads at the sound of Gwen stirring. The older boy glared at the younger and Ben put his hands up in surrender.

"We'd better leave before she wakes up," Ben whispered.

"Ya'think?" Kevin hissed back.

The two left the room and shuffled their way back downstairs.

"Bye Aunt Lili, bye Uncle Frank," Ben saluted cheerily on his way out.

"Good-night Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson," Kevin said politely.

"Good-night boys," Frank said. "Tell my brother I said 'Hi' Ben."

"Will do!"

As soon as they were out the door, Natalie locked it and turned to her husband, her countenance clearly annoyed.

"I don't know why you let that boy see her."

"Natalie honey, we've been over this. Gwen's been fighting hostile aliens and the like since she was ten. She's got a good head on her shoulders, I trust her to make these decisions on her own."

-OMNITHEORIES-

Kevin and Ben sat in silence as the older boy drove through the streets of Bellwood. Suddely a phone started ringing, waking Ben from his dozing.

"Are you gonna get that?" Ben asked.

"Gimmie a second, I gotta pull over."

He pulled over while answering the phone.

"Hey ma'," Kevin answered, stepping out of the car.

"Yes, I know it's late; but I told you I'd be working with Ben and Gwen… Yes I did, but I still have to take Ben home… Yeah, okay, just give me a few minutes."

He got back in the car and out his phone away. He looked over to Ben with a sheepishness gracing his features.

"You wouldn't mind if I made a stop by my house real quick, would'ya?"

"I'm not complaining."

Kevin got back on the road and proceeded to change directions. Ben didn't fail to notice the sudden breaking of traffic laws as he sped through the streets. When they got up to his house, Kevin pulled into the driveway and jumped out the car faster than Ben had ever seen him move.

"Wait there!" Kevin called as he rushed up to the front door.

Ben watched as Mrs. Levin opened the front door and Kevin stopped to talk to her. They went back and forth for a little while, Kevin looking more apologetic than anything else. After a minute or so Kevin walked back to the car.

"Alright, sorry about that. Just got grounded."

"Lemme guess, you forgot to call before breaking curfew."

"Yup."

"How long?"

"A week. Curfew's been shortened. Gotta be in by nine."

"Well, can you get me home before I get grounded too?"

Kevin threw Ben a playful glare before turning to back out of the driveway.

"Just for that, I'll drive extra slow."

"Oh, you know what slow means?"

"Funny, Tennyson."

-OMNITHEORIES-

[A/N] In case you didn't get it, the ideas are: 1) Gwen's mom doesn't like Kevin, 2) Kevin is much smarter than he seems, and 3) Ben and Kevin are best friends. The show didn't make that last one too obvious, I thought I'd correct it.

Please review, it really helps a lot.


End file.
